You Might be a Mountain Man if…
If you live on a mountain and regularly send pictures of nosy black bears sniffing around your front door and casually note in your email: “Had some visitors last night,” then, you might be a mountain man. Meet Tim Jones. He is: “The Stissing Mountain Man.”
Tim Jones lives on Stissing Mountain, located in the Hudson Valley in Pine Plains, New York. I met Tim when his son, also Tim, began working with us 11 years ago. I’ll refer to them as Tim Sr. and Tim Jr. for this piece.
You know when you meet someone and there’s a genuineness where you know they will only speak the truth to you. That’s Tim, Sr. There is no in-between with him. I’ll never forget when Tim Jr. began working with us, we met for lunch here in Newport. My children were young enough where I remember I had my son on my lap while we finished up lunch. Walking out of the restaurant I could tell Tim Sr. was going to miss his son on his drive back to Pine Plains. I knew the love he felt as I held my son’s hand as we walked. Tim Sr., looked at me and simply said about his son Tim: “He’s my hero. “
Farmer Giles of Ham
While at lunch with Tim Sr., the topic, not surprisingly, turned to children’s books. Well, maybe not children’s books. Tim Sr. told me how when his son Tim was younger, he would absorb information at such an elevated level that one of their favorite books was The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Harley Davidsons Roaring up the Road
Cleaning Your Rifle like a Mountain Man
Tim Sr. grew up in the outdoors. He was a trapper. He was a hunter. And not for sport, for food. When Tim Jr. was a baby, Tim Sr. would put him in a backpack and check the trap lines. When it comes to firearms and real-life experience, it’s hard to imagine anyone more experienced than Tim Sr. Once, when I asked Tim Jr. about how he and his dad clean their rifles Tim smiled and said, “Dad cleans his every time he puts a round through it.” I like that approach. Keep things simple. With that in mind, allow me to introduce the Stissing Mountain Man, Tim Jones, Sr.
My Interview with The Stissing Mountain Man
Me: Tim, you’re an authority when it comes to firearms. Would you consider doing a regular interview with me?
Tim, Sr.: E.J., I’m flattered. I never think of myself as an authority on guns and ammo, only as it relates to practical application –hunting, trapping, self-defense. The diners and bars are filled with arm chair experts that know ballistics and trajectory better than I ever will, but couldn’t hunt to feed themselves.
Me: Real life experience counts to me Tim. How did you get started? How old were you?
Tim, Sr.: I have spent the better part of my life armed for one reason or another. When I was about eight and my brother eleven, we bought two guns from the local game warden, a single shot Remington .22 and a 20-gauge Mossberg bolt action shotgun with a poly choke. That .22 proved to be a great little rifle time and time again. The 20-gauge was the worst shotgun we ever owned. We still have them.
Me: One of my favorite stories your son tells me was how you’d have him out in the woods in your backpack. It seems like he has always been at your side, or in your backpack in this case.
Tim, Sr.: I used to pick Tim up from school in hip boots when I was a private contractor recommended and endorsed by NYDEC. A woman giving a class on the environment approached me about my strange attire which led to a nine-year, part time job teaching wildlife and tracking at an environmental school in southern NY. Tim used to go with me a lot. He was six or eight maybe. The kids (mostly from the inner city and Long Island) would like to ask him lots of questions. They called him “mountain boy.” He grew up with a gun in hand also.
Me: Hard to imagine a better way to grow-up. Thanks Tim. Talk to you soon.
Here are some photos Tim took of a recent visitor to his home on the mountain.
